1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a technology for performing a preliminary discharge in a head of a fluid ejecting apparatus that ejects a fluid.
2. Related Art
In the existing art, there is an ink jet recording apparatus that has a line head. The line head discharges ink through nozzles to a recording sheet of paper, or the like, so that there is a possibility that, because ink is thickened around the nozzles or bubbles are trapped in the nozzles and, therefore, it may be difficult to smoothly discharge ink. Then, there has been proposed an ink jet recording apparatus that discharges ink from each nozzle, other than for printing, to thereby recover from a poor discharge of ink, that is, performs a so-called preliminary discharge, (which is described in JP-A-2006-35537).
In general, the line head is formed so that a large number of (for example, a few thousands) nozzles are arranged in a direction along the width of a recording sheet of paper, or the like, so as to be able to discharge ink at the same time over the overall width of the recording sheet  of paper, or the like. Thus, when ink is discharged from all the nozzles when the preliminary discharge is performed, a large amount of ink is used in the recording apparatus as a whole. Then, in the ink jet recording apparatus described in JP-A-2006-35537, ink, which has been discharged at the time of a preliminary discharge, is accumulated in a waste tank and then thrown away. Thus, there has been a problem that a large amount of waste ink that is not used for printing is consumed.
Note that the above problem not only applies to the line head ink jet recording apparatus but also applies to a serial head ink jet recording apparatus. In addition, the above problem not only occurs in the ink jet recording apparatus but also may possibly occur in a fluid ejecting apparatus that ejects a fluid other than ink (which includes liquid, a liquid body in which particles of functional material are dispersed, solid, such as fine particles, that may be ejected as a fluid).